Page 3702 - Week 12 - Thursday, 21 October 1993
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OPTOMETRISTS (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (10.43): Madam Speaker, I present the Optometrists (Amendment) Bill 1993.
Title read by Clerk.
MR BERRY: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
The Optometrists (Amendment) Bill 1993 is another in a series of ACT health professionals registration laws to be amended in line with the Australian Health Ministers' agreement to adopt consistent standards in relation to the regulation of health occupations.
The Optometrists (Amendment) Bill 1993 amends the Optometrists Act 1956 and provides for nationally agreed uniform standards and arrangements for regulating optometrists, and also provides for a range of uniform sanctions which can be imposed on a practitioner in disciplinary matters or on health grounds. In particular, the Bill recognises the entitlement of a person who is registered as an optometrist in a State or another Territory to registration in the ACT if the State or Territory is a participating jurisdiction for the purposes of mutual recognition. It also provides for the Optometrists Board to recognise any conditions which may have been imposed on the registration of an optometrist in another jurisdiction as a result of disciplinary action and apply the same conditions on that person's registration in the ACT.
These provisions are consistent with the mutual recognition provisions relating to occupations as set out in section 17 of the Commonwealth Mutual Recognition Act 1992. The application of that principle to the ACT and to other jurisdictions has given rise to the desirability of adopting agreed minimum requirements for registration as an optometrist. Unless all jurisdictions where mutual recognition applies have the same standards for registering a person as an optometrist, the jurisdiction with a lower standard will provide a means for a person who satisfies that standard but not the higher standards required in the other jurisdictions to gain registration in those other jurisdictions under the mutual recognition principle.
To be eligible for general unconditional registration, applicants must be graduates of a course of study from an Australian institution. Unconditional registration may be granted to persons who are graduates from a course in optometry from an overseas institution which is substantially equivalent to an Australian course and which qualifies the person to practise optometry in that place. They must also pass an examination conducted on behalf of the board and, if required, undertake a period of training or gain experience in the practice of optometry in Australia for a period specified by the board, that period not to exceed 12 months.
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